“The Spirit that comes upon Jesus at his baptism sustains him when he is tested by Satan so that he might proclaim the good news of God’s reign. ⁹In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” ¹²And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Mark 1:9-15

When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, the heavens were ripped open, at least according to the Gospel of Mark, and the Spirit descended from that ripped curtain – from the place where the veil between heaven and earth was ripped apart. Imagine what Jesus felt when the heavens were ripped open and there was a connection between himself and G-d? Imagine what that might feel like…

Ash Wednesday has come and gone, and I am just a little sorry to see it have gone by so quickly. Why? Because I love the liturgy of Ash Wednesday – this opportunity publicly and personally to reflect on our sinfulness – all of the wrong choices we have made in the last year – in just in the last week.  At the beginning of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, we recite the 51st Psalm.  We hear these words, “For you take no delight in sacrifice, or I would give it.  You are not pleased with burnt offering.  The sacrifice of G-d is a troubled spirit; a troubled and broken heart, O G-d, you will not despise.”

Is your heart, and your spirit troubled today?

Lent is to be a time where we reflect on our decisions, our choices, our failings, our mistakes – those things that give us a troubled spirit.  This is what I like about Lent.  We have this time to remember that “We are dust, and to dust we will return.”  It is easy to get to feeling high and mighty about ourselves, since our society tries and tries to tell us that we are worthy of more adulation, more self-promotion, more self-love than others.

This is the delusion that twists our thinking – thinking that everything is something or someone else’s fault. Oh my friends we need Ash Wednesday and Lent to remind us how awful this world really is. We are not, my friends, we are not what we think we are – sin clouds our perception of ourselves, puffs us up, and impacts our choices.  Sin is, of course, an ever present presence in our lives – and our lives are defined by the choices we make – and sadly by the experiences that break into our existence. Lent is a time where we should be contemplating, daily, how we are doing being agents of the “in-breaking” of G-d’s love, mercy and Grace in this broken world. Why? Well, it seems that evil makes its presence known in so many ways – lately evil breaks into our country about every four days with some kind of incident involving a gun or even our political system. Evil is winning the day – G-d’s love, mercy and Grace are trying to pick up the pieces while being used only as a band-aid instead of Gospel medicine. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t it?

Lent then is a time where we should reflect each day on how well we really are doing – in our choices that affect our own spiritual and physical health, in our relationships with each other, and in our relationship with G-d. We have to be intentional, purposeful with four aspects of our lives – our spiritual health – our physical health – our relationship with all people, not just our close associates – and our relationship with G-d. This is how we should use the gift of Lent.

Pastor Dave